As your body changes from sleep deprivation, late night Fuego, a lack of after school sports and people start dating, hooking up and throwing parties, it’s easy to begin to question who you are in college. Then you wonder if you’ll ever be enough because you are not a model size double zero, you don’t have the butt of J-Lo, and you didn’t get invited to that one party. The guy you were talking to asked a different girl to his date party, and you no longer have the 4.0 you had in high school. Your weight, your clothing size, the number of parties you get invited to, your GPA, and the amount of boys who beg for your attention are all measurable by numbers. Numbers are limiting. If you limit yourself to numbers, you are limiting your own happiness.
Do not miss out on life because you have convinced yourself you are not enough. You will get through college. You will find someone who loves you when the moment is right. You will make friends. You will realize these are just numbers, and college was so much larger than numbers. Life is so much larger than college. You must embrace yourself, all of yourself, or else no one will embrace you. Do not spend the skinniest years of your life too afraid to wear a bikini, afraid to go to the beach, afraid that you are taking up too much space. Ultimately, you will lose the summers of your youth because you limited yourself to numbers. Don’t do that. Do not miss out on life because you have convinced yourself you are not enough. There will be people who are thinner than you and heavier than you, prettier and less attractive, smarter and not as smart, richer and poorer. There will always be people who wish they had what you have. That is how life works. It is incredibly unfair, but nonetheless incredible.
Being a young college woman in 2017 is a lot different than being a woman when our parents were kids. Society tells us forget intelligence, forget creativity, and forget talent. Looks are everything. That is not true. Do not let your looks, your body or your womanhood be your greatest asset. I hope you never lose your sense of self, not for a boy or a friend or a family member, not for anyone.
You dictate your own happiness. College is what you make it. Everyone deserves a shot at happiness. We owe it to ourselves to be happy. Our baggage is not yet too heavy. We are young enough to recover from our mistakes. So, make lots of mistakes. We can choose to be leaders or followers. I hope you choose to be a leader. I hope you find your passion and have the strength to pursue it. I hope the child inside you never dies. I hope your fear never stuns your curiosity. I hope you learn to forgive. I hope you have the confidence to defend what you believe in. I hope your hard work pays off. I hope you see the world. I hope you are giver, not a taker. I hope you never forget where you came from. I hope you grow as a person. I hope you never settle for less than you deserve. I hope you become a young adult that your eight-year-old-self would look up to. And if you ever find yourself unsatisfied, I hope you have the courage to change.